Hot Topics:

Council asks city attorney to research options for new policy, introduce it at special meeting in April

By Alex Burness

Staff Writer

Posted:
02/20/2018 01:18:20 PM MST

Updated:
04/05/2018 10:44:13 PM MDT

Semi-automatic AR-15 rifles are for sale at Good Guys Guns & Range on Thursday in Orem, Utah. An AR-15 was used in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla. (George Frey / Getty Images)

Late in the meeting, the council instructed city staff, through an unofficial direction, to prepare options to move forward with such a ban.

Carr and his staff will research various options for how a new policy might look, then introduce it at a special meeting on a day in April to be determined.

"It felt like a no-brainer to propose this," Grano said. "Each time we have a shooting, it is a reminder of the fact that we are failing miserably at protecting our citizens. ... It's time for municipalities to take the lead on this, and while just the city of Boulder alone, with our 100,000 people, may not move the needle, if other municipalities follow suit and this becomes a national trend, that'd be really important."

Advertisement

She added: "We believe that it's constitutionally defensible to have an assault weapons ban. Denver has had one for a long time. Coupling it with high-capacity magazine bans is important ... and bump stock bans are being considered in municipalities across the country as well, because, of course, they can convert (non-assault) weapons into assault weapons."

Carr said he's been reluctant to discuss such a ban with Boulder council members because of the controversy it could attract and because it leaves the city vulnerable to being sued.

But, he told the council, "It's time."

Denver's ban applies to both sale and possession of firearms with "semiautomatic action" or detachable magazines with a capacity of 21 or more rounds. It applies as well to semiautomatic rifles and modified semiautomatic pistols with 21-capacity magazines, and to shotguns that can fire at least six rounds without needing to be reloaded.

But that ban was authored, and later updated, well before a new state law was passed in 2013 to ban the sale and possession of gun magazines designed to carry more than 15 rounds of ammunition.

Just before that 2013 ban went into effect, the ideological battle over gun rights played out in downtown Boulder during a high-capacity magazine giveaway that saw a huge turnout of gun owners and protesters alike.

Denver also recently banned bump stocks after such a device was used last fall by a gunman to increase his rifle power as he shot and killed 58 people at a country music festival in Las Vegas.

Boulder police Chief Greg Testa, through a spokeswoman, declined to discuss the proposed assault-weapon ban. He did tell the Daily Camera, though, in a 2015 interview about gun laws, "If a person wants to harm somebody else, ordinances and laws are not something they're concerned about."

A representative of Gunsport of Colorado — a gun store located at 1707 14th St. in Boulder that sells AR-15-style rifles, but not bump stocks — declined to discuss Grano's proposal when contacted Tuesday.

That shop happens to be located a block from Boulder High School, where Grano's son will soon be enrolled.

"As a mom, that's absolutely terrifying," she said.

There are a number of critical details that Boulder will need to hash out during this exploration.

For example: Would the ban apply to sales, ownership or both? Where is Boulder's jurisdiction, in this case? And what about residents who already own the items that the city may look to ban?

"That's exactly the thing that we need to have staff go look at," Mayor Suzanne Jones said. "As soon as you go down this path, you realize there's complexities to it."

But Jones, like Grano, spoke of a desire to move ahead with some urgency.

"I think everybody in the community is worrying about the trend we're seeing in our country and is frustrated by the lack of national leadership," Jones said. "So for us, I guess, the question becomes: Is there something meaningful we can do locally?

"The fact that students are being gunned down on a regular basis across the country is both heartbreaking and totally unacceptable," Jones added, "and if there's something we can do locally about that, we should."

Though no council member opposed Grano's proposal, some were vocal about the need to be cautious.

Councilman Sam Weaver said it's important to him that Boulder not lose sight of the fact that the vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding. On the pursuit of this ban, he said, "We need to be doing so in a way that is as least divisive as it can be."

Offered Councilman Bob Yates, who is a gun owner: "I think it's very, very important that we are careful with our language here. ... If we vilify gun owners and make this about that, we're going get busloads of people here (for the public hearing)."

Staff Writer Karen Antonacci and The Denver Post contributed to this report.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story